Individual Assignment 2

The Long War Continues...

FIRMS, MARKETS AND GLOBAL DYNAMICS

Submitted To
Prof Indranil Chakraborty
Prof. Sheila R Chakraborty
Submitted By
Sujit Kumar Sahoo (U108111)
 FMGD: Individual Assignment 2

Three Articles chosen for review are

1) [Briefing Pakistan and the Taliban], A real offensive, or a phoney war?

From The Economist edition May 2nd 2009
2) Does he really want a deal?
From the Economist edition of May 16th 2009
3) [Briefing Afghanistan], A war of necessity?
From The Economist edition of August 22nd 2009

This review has also used a Daily chart from The Economist edition of July 3rd 2009 title “Force
Accounting”

Introduction

One of the prime concerns for PEBMEs is to prevent another inter-PEBME war, because as we realize,
the global ramifications of such a war would be devastating and probably culminate in the annihilation
of the entire human race. One of the methods/strategies adopted by US (the Big Daddy of all existing
PEBMEs) is the concept of “Long War”. One of the best ways to prevent an Inter PEBME war is to create
a very very strong safety mechanism. From 1946-1990’s USA used the cold war against the USSR to have
the PEBME’s on one side against the common and rising enemy USSR. After the cold war came to an
unceremonious end, US started looking for a new common enemy, for which it can have all the PEBMEs
together. From 1991-till date US has identified Islam as its common enemy, and has branded them as
“Islamist Extremist” to enhance the threat of the brand “Islamic Extremism” to Global health. We have
read and analyzed a lot of literature and theory about “America’s Long War”; however a subtle, slow yet
significant change in strategy is in place for US to continue its long war.

Why Change in Strategy?

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Exhibit 1
rd
Source: Daily chart from The Economist edition of July 3 2009 title “Force Accounting”

The common man across Britain, France, Germany is questioning its people in power about why they
pay out of their pockets to fund foreign wars, which they don’t want to fight. With more and more
pressure from its domestic people, the PEBMEs are forced to pull their forces out of war zones of
Afghanistan and Iraq. According to the Exhibit 1 above, the contribution of forces from non US PEBMEs (
France, Germany,Britain,Canada) is close to only 58% of the total forces contributed by the US alone.
And this statistic is fast decreasing as we analyse these articles. With support from other PEBMEs
withering down, US (which is also under constant scrutiny and demand from its own citizens with
regards to the long funded wars) is looking to utilize and focus on a different strategy- Use states which
derive their nourishment from US to either fight for them ( continue the long war) or the pipe which
feeds the mouth will be pulled off. This is a win -win for both the feeder and the fed. The feeder forces
the fed to fight on its behalf (PEBME’s behalf) and the fed in turn derives generous grants and support
from the powerful feeder to sustain their vested interests. The US has chosen Pakistan and Israel to
continue its long war. Not an entirely new strategy, but as the chosen articles will show, the focus has
shifted ever so firmly to using these pawns ever more. As we might have appreciated Pakistan’s vested
interest is India and Israel’s bone of contention is Palestine and Lebanon.
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A brief Summary of the three articles

Article 1

Article 1 talks about the war that Pakistan has been somewhat forced to launch against its neighbor
Afghanistan. The US has been quite vocal in advertising and justifying its strategy of using Pakistan in its
war. What US is advertising is two things 1) Taliban is dangerous and its resurgence is real threat to the
world order. 2) Taliban is more dangerous to the interests of Pakistan than any other country. The
Article describes how US has been pushing and using Pakistan against the common enemy. The article
clearly brings out that an average Pakistani is moderate and does not want a war against Afghanistan,
tough they are concerned about the growing retaliation from the other side of Peshawar. The article
also talks about the numbers (money) involved in this strategy. 10 billion US dollars military aid was
granted to Pakistan in 2001, and more has been flowing in over the years. A common joke on this is that
US signs blank cheques to Pakistan in the name of combating Terrorism. More recently, another fund
amounting to 5.3 billion US dollars have been sanctioned and by whom (mainly the PEBMEs, US, Britain,
Japan along with South Korea and Saudi Arabia). The Article goes on to describe how the war against the
resurgent Taliban in Malakand , NWFP,Buner has caused much damage to the civilians and has been
very tricky to win over by the Pakistani Army ( a reason could be the unwillingness of the Pakistani Army
to win over these regions). However to keep the feeding hand continue feeding, Pakistan has to come
up with some tangible results, and according to US estimates and reports from the article itself, Pakistan
has been successful in some areas. However the reading behind the line is that US has got its PR (Public
Relations) strategy right in this regard. A small positive achievement has been projected as national
news by the US agencies. But the question still remains, can the Pakistanis (half heartedly) tame the
stubborn Pushtuns into submission.

Article 2

Article 2 talks about the hidden/mysterious agenda of Isreal’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with
the US President Barrack Obama. The questions that has been raised in the article is that what does
Israel want in the wake of Iran getting powerful in the region (nuclear ambitions of Iran) and the
question that the article does not raise is what does the US want in this context.
(What US wants with Iran, is a no brainer, however just to re emphasize my point, the recent internal
turmoil with an otherwise stable government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does raise some suspicions for
the involvement of US and its pet Israel in this context. The supreme leader of Iran (Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei), the national media, the state forces and the Parliament supports backs Ahmadinejad, and
yet the turmoil and huge uproar against the President, does not go down well. )

The Article also talks about other issues grappling the Israeli Prime Minister, that of Lebanon and of the
perennial problem of Palestine. But does Netanyahu wants a deal or a solution is a question. However
the bigger question is does US want a solution to these problems. From an Iranian citizens point of few,
we (Iran) are next in target line of Israel and the PEBME (US)
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Article 3

The title of the third article” A war of necessity” in effect summarizes the article itself. Mr President (US)
himself has subscribed to the war against “Terrorism” in Afghanistan. As the article mentions, the
President brands the war against Taliban as a war of necessity and not choice. It is a war of defense
rather than offence. According to Mr President, US is under nuclear threat (considering volatile state of
affairs in Pakistan, which can be used by the Al Qaeda to capture nuclear weapons from Pakistan, and
use them against the US). However the statistics given in the same article about the reaction and views
of the US citizens themselves about the war in Afghanistan speaks another story. On all four questions
(refer to Exhibit 2 below, from the article) there is pessimistic support to the US govt for its war in
Afghanistan. The article ends well in favor of my conjecture (that long war will continue for long), to
quote “The war will not be quick, (warned Mr Obama this week), nor easy”

Exhibit 2
Source: Economist (22nd August, 2009 Edition)
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Implications

The Birth and Plight of Taliban

In a very recent news article, Zardari (Prime Minister of Pakistan, a strong ally of the US ) has openly
admitted the well known fact that Taliban is “ Made By US “. To emphasize more on that, the US
secretary of state Hillary Clinton (almost the President of US) has admitted in a congressional hearing
that Taliban indeed is US’ creation.

PEBME US created a monster to fight the proxy war against the USSR and how best to fight and continue
the long war than by destroying its own monster, which has grown to be smarter and rebellious. The
production of war goods by US to fund the Talibans ( at one point of time), the south koreans ( at
another point of time),the Pakistanis, the Israelis and many others is being done with two things in mind
1) To ease the PFSCC pressure on the US economy ( PEBME) and to take the PEBME to maturely
charged economy
2) To establish the supremacy and predominance of the US forces over all the other countries,
which will act as another cushion against the probability of an Inter PEBME war

Strategic location of allies chosen by US to fight for the long war

Exhibit 3
(Source Google images on Maps of middle east )
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US have chosen its allies very carefully to continue its long war. A quick look at Exhibit 3 above reinstates
the point. Pakistan has been chosen to ward off and fight the war against Afghanistan ( ie basically the Al
Qaeda and the Taliban).Israel has been chosen to check the brand “ Islamic Extremism” from gaining
some equity in Middle east region. Also with countries like Saudi Arabia and Syria joining US in the arm,
it will not be long, when the PEBMEs can sit back and enjoy the show, where as these allies will fight the
war for them, ofcourse the backing has to be unanimously be given by the PEBME. This strategy
certainly does combine the PEBMEs, continuous the long war, till US finds another scapegoat, and also
keeps domestic agitators at bay. More recently Egypt has been is on US radar, more and more news
from this Islamic nation tying up with the US and more and more interests from the US side ( what with
the recent visit by Obama to Egypt and the swap return visit by Mubarak) augurs well for my conjecture.
The questions that I ask “Is Africa next?” and “More drama needs to unfold in the Middle East?”

References

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-169660327.html

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/29/2148443.htm

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14140794

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14177344

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/06-us-pakistan-
gave-birth-to-taliban-zardari-06-rs

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13496703

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14252582
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The Three Articles

Article 1

Briefing

Pakistan and the Taliban

A real offensive, or a phoney war?

Apr 30th 2009 | BUNER, ISLAMABAD AND SWAT
From The Economist print edition
As the Pakistani army launches a new assault on the Taliban, America hopes it is
now more serious about defeating the militants

AFP

WHEN Barack Obama unveiled his new policy on Pakistan and Afghanistan in March, he gave a
warning that al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other jihadist gangs were “killing Pakistan from within”.
The generals who guard Pakistan’s national security had shown only “mixed results” in
combating the threat, he said. They would no longer enjoy a “blank cheque”; they must show
that they are fighting in good faith.

On April 26th, Pakistan gave a glimpse of this: by launching an attack on the Pakistan Taliban in
parts of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) recently overrun by the militants. It began with an
assault in Lower Dir, near the border with Afghanistan, in which the army claims to have killed

On April 28th the army launched a bigger offensive in the scenic Buner valley, just 100km (62
miles) from Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. As helicopter gunships and jets strafed their positions,
the Taliban took around 70 policemen and soldiers hostage. But showing more resolve than it
had previously, the army said airborne troops had been dropped behind Taliban lines and freed
18 of the captives. Major-General Athar Abbas, a military spokesman, said 50 militants had been
killed in the first two days of fighting. He said it would take a week to drive the Taliban out of
Buner.

This sudden violence seems to have been provoked, in part, by embarrassing media reports of
the Taliban’s capture of Buner. Many of the bearded fighters had come from the neighbouring
district of Swat, a Taliban stronghold, where NWFP’s government, at the army’s urging, had
brokered a ceasefire with the militants in February. Under the terms of this pact, the government
 FMGD: Individual Assignment 2

promised to institute Islamic law, sharia, throughout the Malakand division (whose seven
districts, including Swat and Buner, make up about a third of NWFP’s area). In return, the local
Taliban, led by a zealot called Mullah Fazalullah, were to lay down their arms.
The Taliban’s advance into Buner, which had resisted Talibanisation, was a violation of the deal,
but at first neither the government nor the army seemed concerned. America, which had
opposed the Swat deal from the start, was furious. On April 22nd Hillary Clinton, the secretary of
state, said Pakistan was becoming a “mortal threat” to the world; its government and people
needed to “speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the
insurgents”. On April 25th she expressed concern for the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal if
the Taliban were to “topple the government”.

Some Western diplomats considered this scaremongering. The Taliban are near Islamabad
because the capital, a 1960s new town, was built close to the rugged border area where these
Pushtun tribesmen live. But there is no chance of their seizing Islamabad. If, unthinkably, the
disparate warlords who make up the Pakistan Taliban were to mass together for a frontal attack,
Pakistan’s army, which is 620,000-strong and well-drilled for conventional warfare, could crush
them. Indeed, many pundits reckon that an Islamist takeover in Pakistan would be possible only
with the army’s support.

The Taliban, almost exclusively Pushtun, are not popular in Pakistan. Though often anti-
American, and bothered by a growing extremist fringe, most Pakistanis are moderate. Unlike
some Taliban leaders, Mullah Fazalullah is not known to have links to al-Qaeda. Yet Mrs Clinton’s
warning points to an uncomfortable fact: since 2001, despite lavish American sponsorship,
including over $10 billion in military aid, Pakistan has only become more turbulent and violent.

Even the country’s president, Asif Zardari, has conceded that the Taliban hold “huge amounts of
land”. The army deserves much of the blame. During a seven-year campaign in NWFP and the
Pushtun tribal areas adjoining it, where 120,000 troops are currently deployed, it has oscillated
between fighting militants and making deals that, typically, give militants the run of their areas
in return for a promise (rarely kept) of good behaviour.
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The Taliban in Pakistan are linked by ideology and Pushtun tribal kinship to those fighting in
Afghanistan. In South and North Waziristan, two ever-hostile tribal areas, the local commanders,
including Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban, are widely believed to play host to al-
Qaeda’s core leadership. They also send their long-haired gunmen across the border to fight
Western and Afghan forces.

For America, Britain and other Western countries there is a direct connection between militancy
along the lawless “Af-Pak” borderlands and jihadist bombings in Western cities. Yet Pakistan is
the biggest victim of the militant tide. Around half a million people are estimated to have been
displaced by fighting in the north-west. From their havens there, many jihadist terrorist groups
have launched attacks on the state. Pakistan has suffered over 60 suicide-bombings in each of
the past two years, on hotels, restaurants and mosques in Peshawar, Lahore and Islamabad, and
on army facilities. Benazir Bhutto, Mr Zardari’s wife, a two-time former prime minister and leader
of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) who was murdered in December 2007, was one high-profile
victim. Foreigners are also at risk. In Peshawar, NWFP’s increasingly nervy capital, two Afghan
diplomats and one Iranian have been kidnapped. America’s consul last year had her (bulletproof)
car sprayed with bullets.

Even if the Taliban cannot conquer Islamabad, they might soon grab some lesser strategic
place—just imaginably, Peshawar; or they could close down the motorway linking it to
Islamabad. Mr Obama’s new policy, which treats Pakistan as the main threat to regional stability,
is intended to arrest this slide. It will come with a lot more money, including $1.5 billion a year in
non-military aid over the next five years. At a conference in Tokyo on April 17th America, Britain,
Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and other “friends of Pakistan” also pledged $5.3 billion in
budget support and other aid. Pakistan will be expected to provide better accounting for how it
spends this money; for years its squandering of America’s war-on-terror cash has been an open
joke.

The mess in Malakand

Like a spectre, the Malakand ceasefire had been waiting to test America’s renewed commitment
to securing Pakistan. It was agreed between NWFP’s provincial government and a veteran Swati
Islamist, Sufi Muhammad, who is Mullah Fazalullah’s father-in-law, shortly before the inaugural
visit to Islamabad of Richard Holbrooke, Mr Obama’s “Af-Pak” envoy. America considered the
pact yet another abdication to the Taliban by an army that has sometimes inexplicably
underperformed. By one Western estimate, it has lost 70% of its battles against the Taliban. It
has also lost over 1,500 soldiers.

Another cause for alarm is that Swat is not like the tribal areas, which have always been largely
beyond the writ of Pakistan. Swat, by contrast, is a thickly populated former tourist destination,
famous for honeymooning couples and Pakistan’s only ski-lift. The Taliban’s capture of Swat
therefore contained a promise of further militant expansion, even into Punjab, Pakistan’s richest
and most populous province. Nor, judged on the failure of earlier deals, did the ceasefire ever
seem likely to weaken the militants, as the government hoped it would. When it was eventually
approved on April 13th by Mr Zardari after much anxious foot-dragging, an American spokesman
said it violated the principles of democracy and human rights.

But most Pakistanis seemed to welcome the deal, believing it would end recent carnage in Swat.
Since mid-2007, when Mullah Fazalullah and his followers took up arms in protest at an army
raid on a jihadist citadel in Islamabad, the Red Mosque, they have blown up 200 non-Islamic
schools in the district, beheaded scores of government workers and alleged spies, and
periodically kidnapped companies of soldiers sent to fight them. Preaching class warfare, as well
as jihad, they have seized hundreds of houses and landholdings, including many of Swat’s prized
orchards. Half of the district’s police officers and many administrators have fled, as have most
landowners. Around 800 people have been killed, most during a heavy-handed army action that
began last October, and displaced at least 100,000 people.
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AP The Taliban in Buner, with Koran and

Kalashnikov

The Taliban behaved repellently during that offensive. Residents of Mingora, Swat’s biggest
town, awoke daily to find still-dripping corpses littering its central plaza, or dangling from lamp-
posts there. They dubbed it Khooni Chowk, or “Bloody Square”. Yet almost all agree the army
killed more civilians than did the militants. “The army was aiming its shells at ordinary people. Or
else, did they hit our houses every day by mistake?” asks Fazal Rahman Nono, a local resident.
If few Swatis have much love for the Taliban, practically none say they want a military operation
to dislodge them; nor do the army and NWFP’s government. General Abbas says that if the army
had continued with its last offensive in Swat, “the whole valley would have been flattened”. He
also defends the ceasefire deal; he says it has isolated the radical Mullah Fazalullah by bolstering
Mr Muhammad, who was until recently in prison and disgrace, having led an army of Swatis to
be slaughtered by American bombers in Afghanistan in 2001.

But far from muzzling his son-in-law’s jihadist invective—which Mullah Fazalullah once broadcast
regularly, earning himself the moniker “Mullah Radio”—Mr Muhammad has echoed it. Ahead of a
rally on April 19th to celebrate Mr Zardari’s signing of the ceasefire accord, Mr Muhammad was
allegedly primed by the provincial government to tell the Taliban to disarm. Instead, addressing
a crowd of 40,000 in Mingora, he denounced Pakistan’s constitution and said democracy was for
infidels. Similarly, Mullah Fazalullah’s commanders say the deal is a first step to
imposing sharia throughout Pakistan.
They clearly have no intention of ceding Swat to the government. Instead, the ceasefire has
enabled them to tighten their grip on it. Last week they occupied the office of Médecins Sans
Frontières, an NGO, in Saidu Sharif. In early April, they occupied the northern Swati town of
Bahrain, and on April 28th shot and injured one policeman there and kidnapped another.
Speaking by phone, a local resident says: “Ours is a life of fear and death.” Yet the government
could probably have lived with this, if the Taliban had not embarrassed it by taking Buner.

A step too far

On April 24th, four days before the army launched its offensive, the Taliban leader in Buner,
Commander Khalil, welcomed your correspondent to his requisitioned house in the village of
Sultanwas. He claimed to have been sent to the district by Mullah Fazalullah to check
that sharia was being followed, in accordance, he said, with the terms of ceasefire agreement.
Yet he and his men had proceeded to chase away the district police and a few local resisters,
killing eight. They then looted every government and NGO office and well-to-do house or
business they could find. Pointing to a large trove of stolen computers, American-donated food
aid and jerry-cans of petrol, he said: “We’ll give them to the poor, who really need them. These
houses also belonged to rich people, who ran away when we arrived because they were scared to
face our justice.”
America is delighted by the army’s subsequent assault in Buner; a Pentagon spokesman called it
“exactly the appropriate response”. Some American officials believe the army will even resume
 FMGD: Individual Assignment 2

its offensive in Swat; and this time crush Mullah Fazalullah. Such optimism might seem justified
by a modest improvement in Pakistan’s fortunes on other fronts. Courtesy of an IMF loan of $7.6
billion, the offerings of its friends, and some penny-pinching economic management, it is no
longer at risk of insolvency, as it was late last year. And in March, skilful diplomacy by the army
and America averted a political crisis sparked by Mr Zardari’s efforts to have his more-popular
rival, Nawaz Sharif, rendered ineligible for election. If Pakistan now has a window of relative
political and economic stability, could Malakand prove to be a turning-point in Pakistan’s flagging
war with extremism?

Probably not. The government has made no effort to use the ceasefire to extend its writ in Swat.
Nor has it announced any plan to abrogate the deal. And the army shows little sign of wanting to
resume the fighting in Swat. If this suggests Pakistan’s top brass may, under pressure from
America, be doing no more than the minimum (or slightly less than that) demanded of them, it
would not be for the first time. One of the tricks used by the former president, Pervez Musharraf,
was to arrest a few of the former jihadist assets of the army’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
agency; then later release them.

America has endured many such false hopes in Pakistan. Another was in early 2007 when the ISI
backed a Taliban commander in South Waziristan, called Muhammad Nazir, to expel some Uzbek
militants who had found refuge there. The army suggested that foreign militants would no longer
be welcome in the tribal area. But Mr Nazir did not evict his Arab terrorist guests, and in
February he declared a new alliance with South Waziristan’s main Taliban commander, Mr
Mehsud, the alleged mastermind of Ms Bhutto’s murder.

In a more recent setback, Abdul Aziz, head of Islamabad’s Red Mosque, was released from jail
on April 16th. He had survived the army’s assault on the mosque (though over a hundred, and
perhaps many more, of his followers did not) by fleeing dressed in a black burqa. Within hours of
his release Mr Aziz was back in the pulpit, claiming credit for the introduction of sharia to Swat,
and predicting the same for all Pakistan.
Another act of Pakistani slipperiness, the government’s failure to dismantle the latest incarnation
of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) terrorist group that is alleged to have carried out a murderous
commando-style attack in Mumbai last November, may be most troubling. In response to strong
American, British and, naturally, Indian pressure, it arrested half a dozen mostly mid-level LET
members, and vowed to try them for this crime. But there is little prospect that the group’s
senior leaders, currently under house arrest, will face justice. And the government has already
failed in its obligation to take over LET’s assets, which include schools, dispensaries and
hospitals. In Punjab, which is home to LET (a group formerly trained by the ISI to fight in Indian-
held Kashmir), the government has taken over 20 LET schools and five hospitals. Yet the group
is estimated to retain control over an estimated 50-70 other properties, which it holds in other
names.

Pakistan’s failure to suppress LET invites the thought that the army has not entirely abandoned
its old proxy. And it still considers India, against whom it has fought three full-scale wars, to be
its main enemy. To some extent, this obsession with India illuminates the army’s troubles in the
north-west. By maintaining its readiness for a conventional war on Punjab’s plains, it has been
slow to acquire the necessary counter-insurgency skills; hence its brutish reliance on artillery fire
in Swat.

Worse, the army stands accused of protecting some of its former militant allies in the tribal
areas, to preserve them for future (or perhaps current) use in Afghanistan and Indian-held
Kashmir. This allegation is often cited to explain the army’s failures. But there is rarely evidence
for it. Increasingly, though, senior American officials decry Pakistan’s obsession with India.
General David Petraeus, chief of America’s Central Command, argues that Pakistan faces greater
danger from home-grown extremism. With a smile, General Abbas suggests he doesn’t think
 FMGD: Individual Assignment 2

much of this: “When people come here and tell us about our neighbour, how good or bad he is,
allow us to take it with a pinch of salt.”

Rigid, deceitful and, it seems, convinced that Islamist militancy poses a much lesser threat to
Pakistan than America reckons, the army will always be an awkward ally along the north-west
frontier. Then again America is a difficult friend for Pakistan. Its pressing objective is to stanch
the flow of Taliban into Afghanistan and to crush al-Qaeda’s leadership; these are not priorities
for many Pakistanis. And if the Pakistani army’s efforts against the Taliban have not been
successful, it reasonably counters that the cross-border insurgency has been inflamed by
America’s own blunders in Afghanistan and its missile strikes into Pakistan.

The army considers that it takes a longer-term view of what is required for its troubled north-
west. In Swat, for example, it seems to think it would be fruitless to pulverise the Taliban, and in
the process kill many civilians, while Pakistan’s civil institutions are too weak to fill the vacuum
that would be created. This is not entirely unreasonable. Local dissatisfaction with Pakistan’s
slothful and corrupt justice system—so much worse, Swatis say, than the traditional system of
modified sharia that it replaced in 1969—has helped fuel Mullah Fazalullah’s insurgency.
Many also seem to believe that, once sharia is instituted, the brutal militants will fade away.
Inam-ur-Rahman, head of the Swat peace committee, a group that speaks to both the army and
Taliban, says: “For God’s sake, let’s implement the deal. It will bring peace.” Alas, that sounds
naive. But even a government determined to crush the Taliban will struggle without the support
of the local population. “Even if you take a Pushtun person to paradise by force, he will not go,”
adds Mr Rahman. “He will go with you only by friendly means.”

Article 2

Israel and America

Does he really want a deal?

May 14th 2009 | JERUSALEM
From The Economist print edition
Binyamin Netanyahu comes to talk to Barack Obama

AP Netanyahu waits for the headmaster

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THE more he can talk about the wider region, the less he need focus on the narrow, awkward
issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That, at any rate, is a perennial suspicion about Binyamin
Netanyahu, Israel’s once-again prime minister, which he will try to allay when he arrives in
Washington for his first meeting, on May 18th, with Barack Obama.

He will want to talk to the president at length, say Mr Netanyahu’s people, about Iran’s nuclear
ambitions, the most pressing and dangerous problem in the eyes of Israel’s government. Mr
Netanyahu discerns “an unprecedented convergence” of interests between Israel and moderate
states in the region in the face of a perceived threat from Iran and Hizbullah, the well-armed
Shia political movement Iran sponsors in Lebanon. But the Israeli prime minister says this is
“irrespective” of his willingness, indeed his desire, to proceed with “parallel” talks with the
Palestinians. He would, of course, discuss those talks too with Mr Obama.

He will also want to discuss new ideas apparently evolving in Washington about a broad regional
rapprochement. King Abdullah of Jordan, a recent guest at the White House, speaks of “a 57-
state solution” between Israel and the entire Muslim world, embracing the full membership of the
Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Mr Netanyahu says this “dovetails” with his own public
statements and private urgings that leading regional governments should be more active in
diplomacy aimed at making peace with Israel. He apparently made the same point to Egypt’s
president, Hosni Mubarak, at the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh on May 11th. But he is said to
acknowledge a need to make progress directly with the Palestinians.

But how? Israeli officials leave that vague, hinting that Mr Netanyahu may unfurl a new plan in
Mr Obama’s presence and then show it to the world. He denies a report that he sought to meet
the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, but was rebuffed. In any event, the two
leaders will not have met before each presents his case at the White House; negotiations
between the Palestinian Authority and Israel have, in effect, been suspended since the previous
Israeli government of Ehud Olmert left office on April 1st.

The Palestinians want

Israel’s new
government to accept
a two-state solution, to
stop building
settlements and to
resume the talks
where they were left
off. Mr Netanyahu says
he wants to talk—but
“without
preconditions”. His
officials say that no
government need
accept the negotiating
positions of its predecessor unless they were enshrined in a signed agreement, which they were
not.

In contrast, senior people in Mr Obama’s team have been loudly insisting, in a string of
statements intended to soften Mr Netanyahu up before his White House encounter, on the need
for a two-state solution and for settlement building to stop. “You’re not going to like my saying
this,” the vice-president, Joseph Biden, told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), a powerful lobby, at its convention in Washington earlier this month. Israel should “not
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build more settlements, [it should] dismantle existing outposts and allow Palestinians freedom of
movement …and access to economic opportunity.”

Mr Netanyahu’s men claim this was not a scolding: the vice-president spoke of “more”
settlements and Mr Netanyahu’s government says it will merely permit the expansion of existing
ones rather than build “more”. His government, like its predecessor, says it will indeed take
down “illegal” outposts, meaning those that have not been sanctioned even by Israel’s
government; its predecessor’s promise to do so was honoured mainly in the breach.

Such semantic bobbing and weaving may remind Mr Obama’s team, especially those in it who
once worked for President Bill Clinton, of Mr Netanyahu’s fraught previous term as prime
minister, from 1996 to 1999. “That SOB doesn’t want a deal,” growled Mr Clinton at a
particularly frustrating juncture in diplomacy. It remains to be seen whether—or how fast—Mr
Obama may come to the same conclusion.

Article 3

American opinions on Afghanistan

A war of necessity?
Aug 20th 2009 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
Americans are giving Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt. For now

AP

THE orator-in-chief has not lost his touch. Addressing a crowd of military veterans on August
17th, Barack Obama thanked them for their service and vowed to give their successors in
uniform everything they might need, while also cutting waste from the military budget. He
reminded them that he was cancelling plans for a costly presidential helicopter that, among other
things, would have let him cook a meal while under nuclear attack. If America is under nuclear
attack, he assured them, “the last thing on my mind will be whipping up a snack”.

The main purpose of his speech, however, was to drum up support for the war in Afghanistan.
“This is not a war of choice,” he said. “This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on
9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even
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larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a
war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defence of our people.”

This echoes what Mr Obama said on the campaign

trail last year. He made a distinction between the “dumb war” in Iraq and the good one in
Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden plotted the toppling of the twin towers from Afghanistan.
Overthrowing the Taliban regime that sheltered him was the right thing to do. If elected, Mr
Obama promised to pull out of Iraq and concentrate on Afghanistan.

As president, he has kept his word, though not as quickly as he said he would. “We will remove
all our troops from Iraq by the end of 2011,” he reiterated this week, “and for America, the Iraq
war will end.” At the same time, he is sending more troops to Afghanistan. Their mission, he
says, is to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda and its extremist allies”.

Like George Bush before him, Mr Obama reckons that the best way to sell a war to Americans is
to mention al-Qaeda early and often. But also like Mr Bush, his war is more complicated than he
makes it sound. American troops are not really fighting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, because they
are not there any more. The group’s surviving leaders have mostly fled to neighbouring Pakistan.

They could come back, perhaps, if America were to abandon Afghanistan and the Taliban took
over again. Denying them a safe haven is obviously in America’s national interest. But there are
several other wild places where al-Qaeda might also set up shop, such as Yemen, Somalia,
Eritrea, Sudan, the Philippines or Uzbekistan. “We clearly cannot afford to wage protracted
warfare with multiple brigades of American ground forces simply to deny al-Qaeda access to
every possible safe haven. We would run out of brigades long before bin Laden ran out of
prospective sanctuaries,” writes Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank.

Mr Obama knows this, of course. His purpose in committing so many troops to Afghanistan is not
merely to prevent al-Qaeda from returning but also to prevent the country from collapsing into
chaos and destabilising its nuclear-armed neighbour, Pakistan. That is too complicated to put on
a bumper sticker, but Mr Obama still has the political capital to attempt it.

That may sound surprising. Opinion polls in America show a growing pessimism about
Afghanistan (see table). But such gloomy views are seldom offered unprompted. The anti-war
movement has all but lapsed into silence. A Democratic pollster asked people at Netroots Nation,
a big conference this month for left-wing activists, which issue they were spending most time
campaigning about. The war in Afghanistan came last. Like other Americans, progressives are
now much more worked up about domestic issues, such as whether they will have health
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insurance next year. As an electoral issue, Afghanistan is “about as inconsequential as it could

be,” says Charlie Cook, a political analyst.

That means that Mr Obama has a relatively free hand in deciding how to deal with Afghanistan,
at least for now. Since he did not start the war, no one accuses him of being a warmonger. Since
he is prosecuting it seriously, hardly anyone accuses him of being weak-kneed. He has funds,
forces and a strategy: to combine rigorous counter-insurgency with efforts to promote
development and good governance. He has some time to make it work. But how much?

Voters may not be paying much attention to Afghanistan right now, but Congress is growing
increasingly uneasy, says Jessica Mathews, the president of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, a think-tank. Lawmakers worry that the costs of America’s huge and open-
ended commitment may outweigh its benefits. Counter-insurgency campaigns typically take
many years, cost a fortune in blood and treasure and end in failure. The people who know most
about Afghanistan are often the gloomiest. “Is Nation-Building Doomed?” asks Foreign Affairs.
“Is It Worth It?” wonders the American Interest.
Mr Biddle, who wrote the article in the American Interest, thinks the war is worth fighting, but
only barely. The costs will be high, the outcome uncertain. Mr Obama’s strategy promises more
bloodshed in the short run in exchange for a chance of stability in the long term. That is hardly a
combination that will appeal to voters, so it will be hard to sustain political support for it for long
enough to make it work.
If the number of American deaths rises too fast, Americans will start to take notice of
Afghanistan and Mr Obama’s job will become much harder. Mr Cook cautions that the body count
would have to rise very sharply indeed to affect the mid-term congressional elections next year.
But that is not impossible. The war “will not be quick”, warned Mr Obama this week, “nor easy”.
Ms Mathews goes further: Afghanistan could be for Mr Obama what Iraq was for Mr Bush, or
even what Vietnam was for Lyndon Johnson.
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